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Economics Minister Robert Habeck in the Bundestag on Thursday: Questions from the coalition partner
Photo: IMAGO / IMAGO/Political-Moments
The dispute over the Heating Act continues. Now Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to invite representatives of the parliamentary groups of the traffic light coalition to a talk. The meeting should take place "promptly", said a spokeswoman for the ministry.
The background to this is that the FDP submitted 77 questions about the Building Energy Act (GEG) to the ministry on Thursday. "These questions will be dealt with and, of course, answered," said the spokeswoman. "Because questions lead to questions, the minister will invite the representatives of the three parliamentary groups to a meeting in a timely manner." The spokeswoman did not give a specific date.
The Building Energy Act stipulates that from 2024 onwards, as a rule, only new heating systems that are powered by at least 65 percent renewable energies should be installed. This would rule out normal gas or oil heating systems.
The FDP had prevented the first reading of the bill on the installation of climate-friendly heating systems from being put on the agenda of the Bundestag for this week.
Recently, there had been various reports about various lists of questions to Habeck's ministry.
A questionnaire of the responsible rapporteurs from the traffic light parliamentary groups – i.e. from the SPD, Greens and FDP – on the GEG included 102 questions. These went to Habeck's house and, according to SPIEGEL information, were answered there on May 9.
There were always voices from the FDP that referred to 101 questions, without the answers to which one could not continue with the GEG (the list can be found here ). The Greens, however, speculate that this is above all a maneuver to torpedo the project. "There is still no catalogue of 101 questions received by the BMWK," said the ministry spokeswoman. "We didn't receive a catalogue of 113 questions."
The catalogue of 77 questions that has now been submitted deals with, among other things, the annual electricity consumption of newly installed heat pumps, the CO₂ savings potential through a pure building renovation without replacing the heating system and the total costs that could be passed on from landlords to tenants as a result of the amendment. In addition, there is also a question about the necessary need for skilled workers in the skilled trades for the replacement of heating systems – and who should review the planned exemption for those over 80 years of age.
Several of these aspects had already appeared in the other lists. It remains to be seen whether all the questions can be answered seriously at all.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, has called on the traffic light parliamentary groups to settle the dispute over the heating law. He had "asked everyone very urgently to solve the concrete issues, all of which can be solved, together in the coming weeks," he said on Thursday in Berlin.
aeh/AFP/dpa